Don’t worry. Be happy – How to have a Good Work day

Productivity blog Achieve-IT offers these 10 Ways to Have a Happy Workday. Some are conventional wisdom, others are more original, but they’re all good.

My faves:

8. Avoid gossip – One drain on your day is gossip. It may seem fun and exciting to learn some juicy tidbit about your officemate or boss. But good gossip is always negative talk. Negative talk starts the pendulum swinging toward negativity.

Gossip is a double loss. Not only is it a time-waster, but it’s unkind and can hurt people.

10. Be slow to react to other people’s “urgent” requests. When someone else asks you for help, to do a project or to meet some other urgent need, practice saying “what’s your deadline on this? or when do you need this done?” THen schedule that day. Most people when asked one of those questions realize it’s not as urgent and will set a future date. That way, you can go back to working on one of your top 3 activities.

Perhaps the five most important words a legal secretary can know are “When do you need it?” Lawyers often assume we can just drop whatever we’re doing and work on their project. But that’s often not the case — especially when the requesting lawyer is a junior associate and our assignment includes senior associates and/or partners. Best to signal up front that there are other projects ahead of theirs and then work out a realistic timeframe.

Achieve-IT: 10 Ways to Have a Happy Workday

(thanks to Lifehack for the linkage)